What is PayPal up to? Company files cryptocurrency related patent...

PayPal has filed their first patent related to cryptocurrency and blockchain tech. The concept behind it revolves around a system that transfers private keys off-chain to speed up transaction times. An excerpt from the patent reads:"The systems and methods of the present disclosure practically eliminate the amount of time the payee must wait to be sure they will receive a virtual currency payment in a virtual currency transaction by transferring to the payee private keys that are included in virtual currency wallets that are associated with predefined amounts of virtual currency that equal a payment amount identified in the virtual currency transaction."

It echos some of the concepts outlined by Microsoft last month (link). It's becoming a widely accepted idea, that transactions must be confirmed off of the blockchain, then recorded to the blockchain afterwards - otherwise there's no way Bitcoin which is currently processing a maximum of about 7 transactions per second, will ever rival credit cards as a payment system which can do about 50,000 per second. Lightening Network is a similar off-chain solution.

But also worth noting - a patent filing doesn't necessary mean a company is about to dive into cryptocurrencies head first. PayPal has not announced any specific product or service related to cryptocurrency coming soon.